Glass & Glazes from Ancient Egypt

January 11, 1948:
On Monday, January 12, the Brooklyn Museum will open an exhibition entitled THE GLASS AND GLAZES OF ANCIENT EGYPT in the Entrance Gallery on the main floor. The objects in the exhibit are drawn almost entirely from the Museum collections in order to illustrate the history of glass and the closely allied glazed wares used in ancient Egypt.

The Egyptians have long been credited with the invention of glass. They knew it in the form of glazes before the dawn of history and produced beautiful glass vessels. Many types of both glass and faience are shown in the exhibition: jewelry, tiles, vessels, statuettes, etc. Perhaps the most striking of the objects shown are those of Egyptian glazed “faience”, a unique material which is quite different from that type of European faience which takes its name from the town of Faenza, Italy, and which is made of clay.

The ancient Egyptians never learned to make salt and lead glazes which would adhere to the clay body of earthenware objects, but sometime before 3,000 B. C. they invented a substance of ground quartz held together by a binder. It is this substance, which we call faience, to which their glazes of pure glass would adhere. Most Museum visitors are familiar with its rich green and luminous blue color.

The exhibition will remain on view through March 7th. A handbook has been published to accompany the exhibition. It may be secured at the Museum Sales Desk, price $.40.

Spring approximately 1948:
The exhibition “Glass and Glazes from Ancient Egypt”, now on view at the Brooklyn Museum, which was scheduled to close on March 7, has been extended for two weeks as a result of requests from study-groups and individuals who wish to visit it but have not yet had an opportunity to do so, and will now close on March 21. This exhibition, designed to illustrate the early history of glass and glazed wares, with emphasis on the development of techniques, is of high artistic interest, showing the love of brilliant color and harmonious form that were characteristic of ancient Egyptian craftsmen.